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This past Friday (11 January) I joined Dave Chaffey for the Smart Insights Marketing Priorities conference on Bright Talk – where we and seven other leading digital illuminaries offered our assessments on important digital elements marketers should consider for the coming year.

I encouraged B2B marketers to master the basics using a seven step approach to effective and meaningful B2B digital marketing – acting as a teaser for my new ebook “Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing” published exclusively on Amazon in December.

I used the analogy of being more owl like and less magpie like in terms of being seduced by shiny new digital things – instead following a robust goal based digital strategy.

The presentation focused on the importance of getting websites and SEO right before investing in any form of online promotion.

The webinar is embedded below. Or feel free to use this link to launch it at Bright Talk (you may well have to log in). The slides are also available separately on Slideshare here – and have been updated to reflect the feedback from the three votes as well as increasing the size and resolution of all the case studies.A BrightTALK Channel
This was my first webinar so you can see we lost some time towards the end because of the questions and polls. Do leave feedback and any questions below and I’ll be happy to moderate.

The interest in my new 440 page ebook Brilliant B2B Digital Marketing (co-authored with Dave Chaffey) and now available from Amazon for Kindle and Kindle apps, has been overwhelming and I’m thrilled to be able to answer questions.

One of the recurring questions is around the companies and case studies profiled in the book. As Amazon’s Look Inside feature doesn’t really help here (and because B2B covers a very broad spectrum of companies), I figured I’d pull together a quick list of the companies included so you can make your own decision to purchase.

Espresso do a great job of using Slideshare and have a real knack in producing slides that can be effortlessly clicked through but that leave long in the memory. Packed full of ideas, tips and examples, here’s a great deck giving a useful overview to social media for the uninitiated which can be skimmed in minutes or talked at for an hour.

If you know someone who needs an overview – a boss, manager or team member – do the decent thing and pass it along. Only when good ideas go viral do they have a chance of taking off.

Business Insider published this fantastic infographic detailing some of the amazing things that happen every 60 seconds online. I can’t vouch for the statistics but if you haven’t yet realised that your business can benefit from embracing the web, hopefully this does the trick.

The aim of the first post was to assess the contributing factors to using (or not using Facebook) and to start to outline some of the strategies that might be deployed.

Facebook offers tremendous opportunities to develop deeper ties with customers and prospects and to tap into their perspective and insights. I challenge any B2B company to review the 64 approaches above and not find one that they might benefit from.

I’ll be following it up with a post highlighting some examples of best practice B2B best practice. Should readers have come across some examples that would be worthy of sharing, please do drop me a line or leave a comment below.

Assuming you have an array of profiles online, when did you last Google yourself?

You really should. It’s fascinating to see the changes in content. A few months ago you may have expected your Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter accounts to dominate. But in a short space of time, Google has taken this over dramatically with it#’s +1 and Circles roll out. Sites like Quora and Slideshare are fast improving, whilst WordPress and Twitter are holding their own.

The interesting change in terms of Twitter as you scroll through the first few pages is that specific tweets rather than just a profile are being collected too. Interesting because it is making you more searchable by what you are posting rather than just having a profile.

So personally, and professionally, it makes the notion of thinking before you hit ‘send’, ‘post’ ‘submit’ all the more important now, don’t you think? Footballer Joey7Barton might want to take note.

NB: No Foursquare or Empire Avenue in sight. Personally, I think that speaks volumes.

Whilst much of the talk about content marketing strategy focuses on the creation, packaging and presentation of information that might encourage your target customer to interact and transact with you, the reality doesn’t need to be so complicated.

But what is within the reach of all businesses are a number of little fixes that can be made throughout your website, your email marketing and advertising to give your marketing the best chance of conversion.

A focus on headings, action buttons and supporting copy can make a significant impact on click-through, lead generation and conversion.

Changing an action button from ‘Register’ which may be an obstacle in the mind of prospective customer to ‘Start now’ alters the perception from being a task to becoming a desirable, benefit enabled action. In this example from a natural wellbeing site, Start Now is softer and less prescriptive.

Hubspot is a masterful example in the art of content marketing. Everything they do is aimed at developing deeper relationship, evolving to product trial. Free Demo buttons stand out on every page throughout the site, which uses its multiple daily blog posts and free webinars, white papers and ebooks to drive traffic.

Joe Browns clothing and accessories, below, help the browsing process by colouring their search button and using the words ‘make it easy – search sale by size’ to help customers get straight to what they want. Simple. Effective.

Expedia simplify site browsing, whilst personalising it, with the use of the copy ‘Find your deal’. Great copy which implies you’ll be able to locate a holiday that’s relevant for you at a price you’ll be happy with. Pretty powerful stuff when you analyse it.

Even the banks are getting creative with their action buttons as this example from First Direct illustrates. From the core ‘Apply Today’ button to the standout buttons to the right offering online security, partner offers and free software, they are making the most of their real estate and trying to drive traffic to key transactional areas of the site.

What can you be doing better to help your visitors and customers along?

I try and keep the plugs to a minimum, but I’m genuinely pleased to announce that the team at BDB has just cut a little video with yours truly waxing lyrical about the virtues of content marketing – what it is, why to include it in your marketing plan and crucially how to assess its ROI potential for your business.

The embed is below, but viewing it on the BDB site will mean you can seamlessly click around the site and take in our excellent blog!

The search for greater clarity and return from our marketing means we have to constantly strive to predict the evolving needs of customers. Knowing what causes customers distress and what makes them happy is criticial.

To aid us in our quest, Holger Schulze has put together some interesting data from surveys of his b2b technology marketers community. With insights into the rationale, the challenges, the formats and the channels, this is worth looking at it if you are looking to generate incoming leads through inbound marketing techniques.

Look out for some surprises in relation to the most used / popular formats and how companies choose to position their content – it might inform and even re-direct some of your activity.

It’s another example of a great Slideshare in action. Quick to browse, usable free information collated by experts, if you haven’t tried it yet, check out my fledgling efforts here. Sign up as there will be more following soon.

I made my first conference presentation to paying delegates yesterday, when I spoke at Social Media Academy’s Manchester event at The Bridgewater Hall on the topic of integrating social media into b2b PR and marketing.

I was active on the conference hashtag throughout the event (#manconf) and have already written a summary of the presentations on The BDB Blog. The presentations are not being made public, but mine is available on BDB’s Slideshare account and embedded below for convenience. I, and we collectively, would love your feedback.

As a b2b marketing professional I’m passionate about giving b2b marketing management issues the time and the oxygen they deserve. If you are organising events and are interested in considering me as a speaker, please do get in touch.